Better and easier accessible oral care in general can improve people's health. Proper guidance from a dentist can lead to proper dental hygiene, which can in turn help to prevent a variety of dental problems, such as tooth decay and root canal procedures. Whiter teeth can also make people feel better. Unfortunately, most people associate a visit to the dentist with unpleasantness, in addition to the inconvenience and the time associated with the visit. Even professional tooth whitening done in a dentist's office, though not necessarily associated with unhealthy teeth, can also be associated with the same unpleasant feelings. In addition, a patient must generally visit the dentist twice to receive a custom fitted whitening tray and gel: the first visit to take an impression of the patient's teeth, which is generally not done by the dentist, but by a licensed dental assistant or hygienist; and the second visit just to pick-up the finished whitening tray and the accompanying gel. Thus, having professional tooth whitening via a dentist is inconvenient. Furthermore, surveys show that only about 48% of the U.S population visits the dentist on a regular basis. Thus, a majority of the population has not been exposed to the benefits of professional, custom fabricated tooth whitening trays. According to this statistics, dentists are also missing out in the opportunity of serving this segment of the market.
Recently, custom fabricated tooth whitening systems have become available to the consumer through two alternative outlets beyond the dental office. A first outlet is in the form of mall kiosks or carts. These carts, however, have serious credibility issues in that the consumers are asked to take their own impressions in a questionable environment, such as, for example, a thoroughfare of a mall, with no dental professional on-site.
A second outlet is the Internet. Web sites exist that provide to a purchasing consumer a loaded impression tray that is used by the consumer to take his or her own impression, return it to the operator of the site, and then receive a custom tray with the whitening product. The web-based alternative may solve the visits to the dental office, but has added shortcomings, one of them being that the consumers generally have to take their own impressions, and another being that the consumers must generally wait for weeks before the finalized trays are received.
Over-the-counter whitening products can be another alternative to custom fabricated whitening trays. These products, however, have numerous shortcomings. Some consumers may not be able wear an over-the-counter whitening product due to involuntary tongue thrusting when the product is applied. These products, even after years of perfection, may still not be as effective as the whitening gels provided by dentists.